


Deluded

by radrezi



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Addiction, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, F/F, F/M, Faygo, Gamzee Makara/Terezi Pyrope Kismesissitude, Hallucinations, Meteorstuck, SGRUB, Sopor Slime, Unrequited Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-06-18 17:14:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15490716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radrezi/pseuds/radrezi
Summary: An alternate timeline where Vriska dares Terezi to recruit Gamzee as an ally during their gameplay session of Sgrub. Later on in the Veil, Terezi has killed Vriska and is properly drowning in guilt, trying to collect and keep all the few remaining ties to her moirail and calls once more on Gamzee, who is now a deranged murderer.If you haven't read up to Act 6, you will have no idea what is going on.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kemalien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kemalien/gifts).



 

the illustrations start on the second chapter until i have time to fucking make one

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

gallowsCalibrator [GC] started trolling terminallyCapricious [TC]

GC: H3Y

TC: wHaT mOtHeRfUcKiN iS, sIs

GC: 1

GC: 1 JUST W4NT3D TO KNOW HOW YOU W3R3

There is no reply for about two minutes. Then:

TC: YeAh

You regret being born on the same planet as this nut.

GC: SO

GC: HOW 4R3 YOU

TC: CoOliO

TC: FaNtAsTiC aS tEn mOtHeRfUcKeRs

TC: No

TC: MaKe ThAt TwElEvE

TC: WhAT eLsE

GC: WH4T DO YOU M34N

TC: YoU sAiD 1

TC: FiGuReD yOu WaS lIsTiN mE oUt a CoUpLa QuEsTiOnAiReS fOr A bRo

GC: TH4T W4S MY QU1RK

(You resist calling him a dumbass between phrases)

GC: TH3 ON3 1V3 H4D S1NC3 MY H4NDS TOUCH3D 4 K3YBO4RD

TC: GeEz SiS

TC: ApOlOgY mOtHeRfUcKiN oFfErEd

TC: DiDnT kNoW yOu WaS aLl Up N mOtHeRfUckIn sTuTtErIn

TC: ThE sHiT yOu Do ThAt FoR, sIs

TC: WeS bEeN cOmMuNiCaTiN oN tHe Net

TC: HaRd To FiGuRe oUt a SiStEr'S sEnTeNcE wHeN aLl sHeS dOnE beEn StUTtErIn DiGiTs N mAkIn JaCk ShIt A sEnSe

GC: Y34H BUT YOU

GC: N3V3RM1ND

TC: CoNsIdEr My MiNd NeVerEd

Does that mean he doesn't have a mind? News to you.

GC: G4MZ33

TC: WhAtS tIcKlIn YoUr mOtHeRfUcKiN pAn

GC: T3LL M3 4BOUT

GC: TH1NGS

TC: ThInGs Is CoOl

TC: As A sMoOtH MoThErFuCk

GC: GOOD TO KNOW

TC: HoLd iT

TC: WhY yOu AlL Up AnD mAkiNg SoMe KiNdA mOtHeRfUcKin EfFoRt AlL a SuDdEn

He does have a thinkpan then. A fragmented one. A tenth of the regular size, you'd give him, tops.

GC: WHY NOT

TC: AiNt LiKe YoU tO bE BeIn aLl SiSteRly

TC: Up In My ThInGs

TC: GoOd As A SmOoTh MoThErFuCk

GC: H4V3 YOU H34RD OF 4 G4M3 C4LL3D SGRUB

TC: ThE OnE tHaT pIsSbLoOd LiSp MaDe

TC: AwArE a ThE hApPenIns YeAh

GC: W3 W1LL B3 ON TH3 S4M3 T34M

TC: Ah

TC: I cAn AlL uP n MoThErFuCkiN sEe

TC: WaNnA fOrGe A fRiEnDsHiP

TC: An AlLiAnCe

TC: A CoAliTiOn

TC: RaN OuTtA SyNoNyMs

GC: 1 DO

GC: BUT NOT ONLY B3C4US3 OF TH3 G4M3

GC: YOU 4R3 4N 1NT3R3ST1NG P3RSON G4MZ33

TC: HeArD tHaT sHiT bEfOrE

GC: P4RDON MY US1NG TH1S TOP1C4L 3V3NT TO K1CKST4RT WH4T M4Y BLOSSOM 1NTO 4 V3RY MUTU4LLY B3N3F1T1NG P4RTN3RSH1P

TC: WhY mE

GC: WHY NOT YOU

TC: WhaTs YoUr WiCkeD ReAsoNin

TC: EnLiGtHen A mOtHerFucKeR

GC: NONE OF YOUR

GC: TH1NGS

TC: ReSpEct It

TC: CoNsiDeR uS PaRtNeRs

GC: TH4NK YOU

TC: HaPpY tO hElP

TC: MoThEr Of FuCk

gallowsCalibrator [GC] ceased trolling terminallyCapricious [TC]

You roll your chair out from under the desk and sigh, resting your non-existent eyesight on the ceiling of your respiteblock. That was so mentally draining.

Gamzee is the last person in the entire world that you would willingly associate with. You're disgusted with yourself for even initiating a conversation with that buffoon. You're disgusted with yourself for even taking up your former FLARP mate's dare to do it. She has a way of doing things like that, spinning a gossamer web about you with such grace and charm that you never realise she has you roped up right in the middle until hope is only a memory to laugh at. But now, while you are still stuck with some slurring, retarded clown, you've undoubtedly won this round. And you're going to make Little Miss Blueberry Swirl pay.

You get out of your chair and sniff your way over to your latest customer, Limemuzzle, the associate of an ex-senator who went by a similar but tastier name. Limemuzzle is seated behind a dinky interrogation desk, a lamp shining in his beady button eyes and a look of desperation-masked guilt playing upon his scaly mug. You raise a hand and swiftly snap the bulb into his ocular and savour the scent of fresh tears as it tingles at the front of your stressed-out pan. That's right. That's what you need, is a bit of distraction from things - the kind of distraction that doesn't involve eating your bedsheets, you mean. You crouch down next to your customer and breathe in the fear, the pain, the undying deceit hidden within him, and assure him that you're known for this, for peeling back the skin that shields these unholy truths and for pulling out the very souls of innocent fools who attempt to divert the course of justice. You cackle once and let the echo bounce around your colourful courtroom, a genuine grin pulling at the corners of your mouth. The interrogation has begun.

...

"Gamzee Makara." You take pleasure in rolling the words off your tongue as you saunter up behind your associate. This is the first time you've ever smelt him, and he smells exactly how you thought he would smell. He's lanky, his limbs too long and dangly for him to do anything productive with. He has a hard time keeping his knuckles off the ground. His hair is brittle, tangled and caked with paint even five centimetres above his hairline. His horns curl up triumphantly from that mess of a mane, adding another half metre to his height at least. He slowly turns around, slow as if he were in chains, as you poke him in the back with your cane. He was obviously ignorant of your verbally addressing him, but you now know he responds to physical force and mark him down as a work in progress.

"Teresa!" His face scrunches up as his toothy grin traverses the hardened face paint path towards his ears and he lifts up his heavy palms towards you as high as he can (though this height is only slightly above his shin), his half-lidded eyes probably still getting used to the sight of you. Or maybe they're still adjusting to being able to see at all. "How _is_ a bitchtit?"

"Ready to win a game is a bitchtit." You try to humour him, but he tilts his head to one side and his smile flickers.

"Hey, why's you talkin' all funny like a motherfucker all'a sudden?"

"I am ready to win this game." You correct yourself while making slow and helpful gestures to illustrate your point, your own smile twitching more than flickering.

"What game."

You lean on your cane and resist the urge to stab yourself right through with it.

"Sgrub."

"Ahhh." Gamzee's lids go lower and the corners of his mouth string up again. "That pissblood's make."

"Yes. We are both in the red team and we are both going to win this."

"Aw man, damn motherfucking _straight_ is we gonna beat the shit outta them motherfuckers!" Gamzee's digits curl into fists and a sudden fire flashes in his eyes. You're surprised by this outburst, but you can't get a reflective thought in before his limbs buckle and he sinks low again.

"Shall we?" You change the subject and start to walk past him and onto a bouncy bit of trampoline terrain. He takes a while to register your remark, then drags his load of a body after you while you bounce ahead and spear an imp. _Yeah,_ you think as you watch him club the life out of a circus tent while you're walloping enemies judge-and-jury style. _You're going to make a great team._

...

After your elaborate dance of hopscotch with your eleven - yes, you've realised the whole separate team notion was a ruse - teammates, you're all collected on the checkered battleground with a complete monstrosity of a boss to defeat. He's beyond a joke, all tentacles and claws and everything that doesn't belong together and his heads scrape the sky. You've all fought valiantly but everyone seems to slowly be coming to the same conclusion - you can't win. Vriska's dice are worn thin, Kanaya's run out of outfits to wear and your hands can barely grip your knives. Attacks are getting slower and clumsier. You stagger over to your associate, making sure Vriska can see, and lean on his tall figure. He hasn't done a thing all the battle besides slobber all over his shirt.

"Wuz goin' on, sister?" Gamzee decides to ask after a ten-second delay. "Fill a motherfucker in, wouldja?"

"I'm sorry, Gamzee. We aren't winning." You sigh and run your hands over your arms, shamefully directing your gaze to the lily pad you're standing on. You feel sorry for him. A guy like that was probably going to hold on to promises, and hadn't you gone on and on about winning until it dripped from his thinkpan? Okay, it didn't really matter. It wasn't like you were angling at quadrants or anything like that, it was just you and your high expectations inevitably crashing down and this time you took the poor guy with you.

"Ain't winnin jack shit."

You tighten up. Are you hearing things, or did that statement have the slightest note of indignation in it?

"What?" You automate.

"I said we ain't not winnin' JACK _SHIT_." You're startled to smell his eyelids flip up and narrow back down, his oculars glow bright - you'll admit it - tasty red and his thin, slobbery mouth distorts into a snarl.

"Gamzee-" you begin, theres no time for him to get mad at you, but wait, since you're about to be crushed by two huge chess pieces anyway what more is a bit of spit in your face? You glare at Vriska as she smirks at you from a distance and brace yourself for the scolding.

But it never comes.

Gamzee leaps up on his feet with more strength a guy like that should possess and blinds you again as he grabs his set of clubs from his eyesore sylladex. "Teresa, you stay the _motherfuck_ of put," he growls, but your knees buckle under you at that same moment, so its a win-win situation. "Because we _aint not WINNIN' JACK 'A SHIT._ "

He leaps, three lilypads at a time, toppling Tavros over as he bounds up to the black king, he lets himself sink down low on his last jump and gets catapulted to the moon and back and a few rounds more, accelerating like a two metre tall bullet before impact on the king's skull - right above the temple. The enemy only manages a pathetic squeak before Gamzee is out the other side, whirling his clubs like mad, they're on fire now for no good reason, Nepeta and Kanaya leap onto the staggering king and butcher his head off and into 100 gram bits, ready for wrapping and selling. The huge crown falls to the ground with a massive thud, making a great dent in the checkered ground. But Gamzee doesn't stop. He's fucking amazing, is what he is now, the second head makes the mistake of turning around to see what the fuck the ruckus is all about and he God damn FLIES through the air, his flaming clubs look like ridiculous wings as he flings them around him and slices nice and clean through his throat. Gamzee fucking boomerangs a good while before circling back to you and your silent teammates, his flames extinguished and he soars over you, his aim was a bit off, not that you think he took aim at all, Equius reaches up and grabs his wrist and he falls back down in the middle of you like putty. He's all tangled up in himself but his eyes have gone sickly lime again and he stares up at you in blissful ignorance.

But the king keeps on, him and his headless body like a cockroach reeling and spurting blood everywhere and he reaches a hand out and nabs Vriska, her dice fall out of her hand as she's brought above the atmosphere and she can see the stars, but her dice land on a lilypad and they all go eights up and Vriska soars down with a huge motherfucking sword in her hand and smashes the king's scepter as he falls apart, on the ground with a sonic boom and making the universe quake as he settles at last in his planetary grave.

You're all silent.

Karkat is making a puddle of drool on the ground before Kanaya reaches over and dabs at him with a laced kerchief.

Gamzee comes to as few senses as he had before and lifts his head up. He stares at Aradia(bot), Karkat, Kanaya, Vriska, Nepeta, Equius, Tavros, Eridan, Feferi, Sollux and then swivels his head full circle to gawk at you. He blinks once, twice, three times, four times, five times, six times then opens his mouth to speak, but he evidently can't find the words to say so he blinks a few more times at you before trying again.

"The motherfuck you lookin' at sis."

You're all silent again until beside you Sollux snickers. Then Vriska snorts and Feferi giggles. Karkat stares at his moirail and slowly whispers, "Fuuuck."

"Bloody hell." Offers Eridan.

"What t'fuck wath that?" Sollux says.

"Oh my fucking word." Kanaya remarks, primly as possible.

You're suddenly overwhelmed with an inexplicable joy, and you don't have time to contemplate it before you double over in laughter, and Tavros laughs too, everyone laughs now and Karkat screams over and over again, "FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!" and everyone else swears a bit too, 'fuck's and 'shit's fly about some then a lot and even Equius manages a small "Blimey," and you're dancing and jumping up and down and Nepeta's almost crying and Gamzee's gone to sleep but you shake him awake and hug his limp torso while the rest of him is limp on the ground and his head lolls over and he stares at you then smiles suddenly and you're all laughing and swearing and tossing Gamzee up and down Vriska playfully stabs Tavros with her sword as you kiss her full on the lips (platonically, of course) and you're all hollering and hooting and breakdancing a bit even because you're so fucking happy because you're a dozen hormonal teenagers who've just won the game of your god damn lives.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

 

 

Everything is in pathetic bits.

 

You were so sure you were going to win.

 

You replay the scene again in your mind, because what else are you going to do here: Karkat spitting curses and gesturing to the door on the floaty white hive, everyone only paying attention to him because they were so tired and ready to do anything for a break. The huge black dog with wings and a sword teleporting in on a wave of delicious but fatal electric green. A million Aradias, popping in and sacrificing themselves for your tired asses. Arriving at the Veil, confused, bruised and battered. Humans. Dave. Kanaya and Feferi, cold on the floor. Tavros dropping out of the sky. Your cane, cold in your hand, pressing into Vriska.

You linger on her. "Do your worst." She had muttered and by fuck you wish you had. Maybe you could have got her through the stomach, no one dies if you do that - you've seen the Troll Princess Bride, unless you've got a bladder for a heart and science on your blade. You could have just gently loped off her arm again, she deserved as much, that fucking murderer, but weren't you any worse...

You shake your head and it hurts a lot but Vriska gets pushed back behind your pan. You look up and smell your dreary surroundings. It's a room, it's dim and musty and there's some broken lab equipment in the corner for furniture. You're prostrated on the floor, your dragon cape is spread out around you like a pair of flightless wings and your cane is somewhere near you, you guess. You can feel the bags collected beneath your eyes and the sigh caught in your throat. What is there to do? You think, making a mind to shift a bit, check you're still alive, but your body doesn't follow through on the order and you don't care either way. Maybe just wiggle your toes... You can't bring yourself too. You could sleep, but its hard to do that when you're lying belly up and you've proved you're not moving. Do you feel sad? No, that's for sure. You don't feel very much else either - don't think you're numb, that's bullshit, you'd prefer to go with 'at peace'. Snap out of it. Snap. Snapdragon. Violet. Rose. Dave. Stop.

"Stop it." You whisper suddenly, and you patiently gather your senses into your pan. You wriggle your toes and sigh. You're alive. Great. Fantastic. Now you've got to get up. Sit up. You groan, still flat on the floor and you sink into the ground. Then, like you're made of lead, you bring your outstretched arms beside yourself and push down on your elbows - Hello world!

You slowly ease up onto your elbows, then onto your hands. Your toes wriggle again, look, see them move. You hope Sollux has dismantled that security camera system he had set up - you're a real sight now. Not that he's around to see... But...

You come out of a daze and find yourself on your feet, slouching terribly.

"Oh." You say.

"Oh." A bit louder.

"Good day." Your voice is barely above a whisper but its progress.

"Hey. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Good night."

You fall on your knees and you're about to drop further when you pick yourself back up. "I'm alive." Your voice is back to normal. Remind yourself to prepare celebrations.

Now that you're partially in charge of yourself you decide to keep it that way.

You do some light stretches, a little yoga, some meditati- that is honestly the last thing you need right now, is disassociating further, mindfulness your ass- you jog a bit, around the room, you trip on your cane but it wakes you up a tad more.

Holding your cane, you run your fingers over the dragon head on top. Hmm. Smooth.

You reach out and touch the damp stone wall beside you. Textured. You shift closer. Closer. You lick the wall. Hey, you lick stuff sometimes. Good on you. What the fuck are you doing. Be productive... or something. Whatever. Stand up straight. Or what? You'll have a curved spine and you'll shuffle around with your back bent in half but no one's going to see you. Who's here to see you? Karkat... Fuck... Sollux, but he's out cold. Kanaya, but she's too bright to look at. Excuses! Oh, an exclamation mark. You're a feisty one, aren't you.

Gamzee...

...

You should have dropped the whole Gamzee thing sooner, but he's the last tie you've got to your former moirail. You think he's lonely. You're lonely. Everything's about you, isn't it. God, you're so spaced out. Hello! Gamzee. He's made himself a neat little home in a dark room, but the dark doesn't keep you out when it's all you see. You limp, for no apparent reason, on your cane and you're suddenly cold. This guy has a fucking aura.

 

"Gamzee Makara." The words come without emotion.

His response is quick and unnatural. His slashed face snaps into smell and you shudder. His mane is wilder than before, yes its possible, you're sniffing at it right now. His eyelids are pulled right back into his skull and your eye bags are no competition compared to his. His eyes are bright red, like yours, but they're got tiny pinpoint pupils that dart around too quick, you think, for him to be able to register anything he sees. He needs a fresh coat of face paint, its all smudged and cracked and bloody and he's got the mother of boogers up his pointy nose. His shirt is caked with dried spit and something greenish... What it is you can't recall. You don't realise how quickly all of this flashes through your head until his snarl of a mouth diverges and his pointy, yellow teeth come into show.

"The fuck you MOTHERFUCKING WANT, BITCH."

"I... I wanted to know how you were." This is sounding awfully repetitive, you even stuttered, but the repetition makes you calmer. Even if the circumstances are beyond different.

"Shut your damn face."

"Can't we talk?"

"About THE FUCK WHAT."

"Things."

You want to remember the exact event, to relive it, to relive the time you were more angry at him than vice versa, but he won't have it.

 

"Things," Gamzee growls, "Is less than MOTHERFUCKING shit." You wonder why you're still here. You're shaking too much to be comfortable - you're shaking, you realise, but you stay.

"Things is a fucking BITCH." Gamzee seethes, and you smell his teeth grind and his fists tighten. "Things is been shit since-" he suddenly chomps down on his wrist, his teeth sink in and blood spurts onto you.

"Since what?" You ask. Blood is whatever to you now, you're at peace, remember?

"FUCK OFF."

"Tell me." God, why did no one ever tell you what a boring conversationalist he was? Playing hard to get only works when the other party cares.

Gamzee growls menacingly, at least you think it's supposed to be menacing, and he grabs you by your puny little neck and shakes you, then brings you close to his hideous face.

"You best be leaving the motherfuck now, SISTER." You catch something on his breath, an old scent down the back of his throat... It reminds you of home. You're dwelling on this until you notice how his nails are digging into your throat and how you haven't got much air in your lungs. You choke and sputter and finally your retarded thinkpan catches up to the rest of the world and you're scared.

You're shaking like a maraca and squirming like a worm, there are tears streaming down your face in litres and your teeth are chattering up a storm. Gamzee throws you out of the room and you hit the wall opposite, jump on your feet and run on your adrenaline high in any direction, away, he turns back into the room and you hear something go splat on the floor inside. You sprint, sprint, sprint all over the place, where's Karkat, no, he can't see you like this go back! Go back! You skid and hit a dead end, absorbing the concrete at full force, then you crumble into a simpering heap and sob, like a fucking wriggler.

You shiver and your fingers try to cover your pathetic face but they shake too and end up stuck in your nose, mouth, ears, eyes, the adrenaline is eating you from the inside out, you cry and groan and your face turns raw, your nose drips like a faucet and you'll probably be dripping earwax everywhere soon too. A huge boom sounds from somewhere and you jump a metre into the air, flailing wildly - you want to fly! Away from this place, this labyrinth of sorts...

Home, you want to go home!

You're going to go home and scale your treehouse all on your lonesome, away from anything, you'll kick open your door because its yours for kicking and wash your face and take a long, hot shower and dry off nice and step into your recuprecoon where the soothing green slime will ooze all over your tired limbs...

 

SOPOR SLIME! You pounce up, you run in a circle and hoot.

Gamzee needs sopor slime!

You're suddenly light as air and you properly skip about, going from room to room and peering in, no sopor slime here, none there... You slowly grow tired and you trip on your feet.

Sopor slime, Gamzee needs sopor slime... You repeat it like a mantra, sometimes in your head, sometimes externally and it bounces off the walls and comes back to remind you: Gamzee needs sopor slime.

Once, you pause to reflect. Why? What are you doing? He's not hurting you - you feel the fresh cuts around your throat with one hand and feel the ripped end of your cape with the other and you dropped your cane back somewhere too - but that's on you! Don't blame the poor guy, serves you right for being a right busybody. No, you've gotta make it up to him. But that, you admit, is not the only thing. You want a friend. Its lonely, lying alone on the floor. You've done some interesting thinking while prostrated, you may quite well be on the verge of something groundbreaking, not to toot your own horn, and its a waste to keep these thoughts to your pathetic self, you'd like to tell Gamzee, he'd fucking love it, he'd savour every word but you're sure he'd retain nothing... Not then.

You want the old Gamzee back - the one who you were stupid and self-centred enough to hate, loathe even, God if you could turn back time. No, for him and for you, you're going to get the guy back on sopor and he'll love you for it. You doubt he can even stand the state he's in, he needs to have a year-long bath and get the paint out of his hair, you need one too, look at you, you're a sight. You've been walking aimlessly, glancing into any rooms but turning up fruitless but at this thought you stop in your tracks.

Are you pale for him? Your face automatically contorts, that sounds horrible. But are you? You were going to give him a bath, for fuck's sake. But you're grimacing at the idea now, that means you don't want a moirailegiance... Right? Then what are you doing now, rolling around all over the place trying to find a bed for him to eat? It's because you're lonely, you remind yourself, you may die for want of socialisation, and Gamzee is the one guy who can give it to you - provided he's high off his damn ass.

 

With renewed energy and certainty clutched tight in your hot little hand you race off once more, to no avail. In fact, it seems you've been running in circles because you're right back where you started - in front of Gamzee's makeshift den. With nothing else to do and your confidence in yourself lost you push open the door and walk in. You really wouldn't mind dying this time. You're so unhealthy.

Gamzee has assumed a feral position, finally shifting his weight off his bony legs and onto his sinewy arms. He crouches in a dark corner, filling up the space so that you can't see what's behind. He turns towards you and growls but you ignore him, picking up a bottle of Faygo and falling into a pile of sad horns, their cacophony of hisses and honks describing your current mood perfectly as you sink low into the metal and fabric. What's in the corner evidently fascinates him too much, so he leaves you be.

You turn the bottle around in your hands, sniffing the ingredients and the nutritional facts in the dim light. This light is unintentional, you take note of the smashed out light bulbs on the walls, but even at his staggering height Gamzee couldn't reach the one built into the ceiling, and had to make do with chucking bottles at it so that all but one flickering bulb remained functional. Not that you needed light. You're blind, remember?

You twist off the cap of the Faygo bottle and its completely flat. Nothing spills onto you and there's no welcoming fizz. You've tried the drink before, courtesy of Gamzee, and you guess its okay if you just swallow it. You lazily raise it toward Gamzee's hovering silhouette and mutter a toast you forget before bringing it to your lips and taking a swig. Its worse flat than it is carbonated, but you swallow it with an overdramatic gulp and sputter a bit. Gamzee's head slowly turns around and he glares at you, red eyes still piercing through the darkness and then he lumbers towards you, still obscuring the treasures he's hoarding in the corner. You wonder what he's going to do. You're not afraid of him anymore, though, and you refuse to ever learn your lesson.

"Join me, Gamz. Have a flat Faygo." You pull one out of the pile of horns and hold it up to him. He bats it out of your hand.

"Fuck you." He growls as it splatters all over the wall.

"Come on, Gamzee," you drawl, the Faygo getting to your head already - is this an alcoholic beverage? Or are you just disassociating? You roll over and pat the space next to you. "Feelings jam."

To your surprise, Gamzee gnashes his teeth and eases down next to you. He's too big to lie down but he sits with his legs pulled up in front of him and his arms laid across his knees. He stares down at your tiny figure in a fit of indignation.

"Tell me..." You croon, turning towards him, taking another swig of the awful Faygo. "How are... things?"

"Shit."

"D'awww, tell a motherfucker." You've drained your first Faygo and gesture for him to give you another. He does. "Was' eatin' my big boy?"

"NONE A YOUR MOTHERFUCKING BUSINESS."

You pout at him, god you're drunk. You chug your second Faygo, and most of it gets onto him and you as you choke and spit it all out. "You jus' gonna stew in your problems are ya? Tell me! I can help!"

"You can't."

"Fuck you I can! You want sopor, don't you?" You rise and throw the empty bottles on the floor and they roll into the shadows. Hey, when did two Faygos become five? Or are you seeing things? "You want somma that fuckin... Bedsheet down yer maw?" You shuffle over to your abandoned cane and pick it up before heading to the door.

"Yeah, well (hic) Teresa motherfucking Pyrope is gonna GIT you somma that fuckin' bedsheet, just you wait!" And before he can answer you've stepped out of the room and run down the halls again.


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

 

 

 

Hangover time! You wake up draped over an abandoned sofa, mouldy and rotting and your back is hurting something awful. You haven't had a recuprecoon in a long while and its really getting to your spine. You roll over and fall onto the sofa and stare at the ceiling. Tears are suddenly in your eyes.

"God, its hopeless." You say to yourself. Isn't this familiar? You, up there on your high horse making promises to a poor guy like Gamzee and then your expectations inevitably crash and you're worse off than before? Play another fucking tune. You get tears in your ears as they trickle down your cheeks. Fuck you. Why do you never learn your fucking lessons? You don't deserve friends, you don't deserve some Gamzee and you deserve to be tucked away in some lonely cell forever where you can fucking keep away from hurting people. You're a fucking murderer. You'll just kill Gamzee and then you'll be all alone again. And who's next? Who's left, is the better question. You are sure when that whole Eridan showdown and that whole Vriska massacre went down the victims were happy to go. Who wants to be in the Veil with you? Fuck you!

Your tears stream in rivulets and you sob like a pathetic wriggler. How did you survive fucking infancy? You're the worst, you're awful, you're all the bad things and more and you hate yourself. Everyone hates you - who would put up with a loser like you? No one! That's why you're all alone... Alone...

Your nose is marred by the scent of tears as you sit upright. You've got to go away. You're going to go back to your room and lie there and never wake up. You make it halfway to the door before you completely lose it and fall to the floor, your useless eyes just saturated with useless tears, you useless person - get your sorry ass up, someone's going to pass through and slip on this pool of tears you've collected on the floor, you'll break their neck! You'll murder someone else! Go away! You're up again, you slip on your tears and you're down again. Then you're up, you balance on your cane and limp to the door... Hands grabbing at the handle but also trying to cover your tear-stained face so no one can see... You open the door and rush through...

 

What the fuck?

The room is brighter than the other ones you've been in, although they're no real comparison, and there are no flickering bulbs. The room reflects a strange green colour, and you wonder why until you stop staring at the wonder that is functional electricity, God bless Troll Thomas Edison, and look down and see that the room is filled with at least a dozen different sized, shaped and coloured recuprecoons. They all look shiny and new, the fleshy exteriors bearing no signs of scratches or scuffle marks and the thing of all the makes you want to climb ten mountains is that they're teeming with fresh sopor slime. You gawk at this sight for too long then suddenly your pan stops swimming in ecstasy and you only have one word in your mind. Gamzee.

You run, hop, skip, jump, fucking moonwalk like a rocket down the winding halls, lighter than air with the wind at your heels, you're obsessed now, Gamzee's name plays incessantly in the front of your pan and you're turning rabid, frothing at the mouth almost, you're gonna get that fucker and make him eat all that fucking slime, you'll cram it down his throat until there's no more space then you'll switch to his ears, his nose, where's the guy, WHERE'S GAMZEE?!

You fucking kick open the door to Gamzee's dwelling, he's back in the corner again, rounding his back nice like an arch, and he swings round to face you, he's properly frothing too, bubbles dripping down the sides of his mouth and claws held out. He makes a go to nab you and crush the life out of your pinpoint of a body but you duck and leap up in front of his face, you stick your feet into his shoulders to keep you up and you grab his gnarled face in your hands and yell, "GAMZEE, I'VE FOUND SOPOR!"

He's stunned, you think, trying to read the expression on his face before you drop back down and seize him by the elbow, dragging him out as he howls in rage but shuffles after you, faster goddammit! He gets caught on all the corners you turn and he's bruised and battered by the time you reach the room, he hisses when you throw open the door and the light hits him in his red eyes and you jump in front of him and cry, "LET'S GET HIGH, MOTHERFUCKERS!" like you're at a troll frat party.

Gamzee, however, fails to show enthusiasm. He stands there, one huge palm across his face to shield him from the light and a grimace plastered on his cracked face. You stand, arms still outstretched, still panting from your outburst as he makes a dismissive gesture at the lightbulbs and tilts his head to one side, his eyes squinted into tiny slits as he regards you with a confused expression.

"The fuck this for, Teresa?"

Your mouth closes and your smile weakens. What does he mean, the fuck this for? WHAT DOES HE MEAN, THE FUCK THIS FOR?!

"I," you say calmly, your anger concealed by a thin layer of melting ice, "have all but fucking DIED for this moment. I've been around this stupid fucking lab a thousand times in a day, trying to find you some fucking bed so you can fucking get high and fucking be a normal fucking person."

"Teresa," Gamzee says, he's angry too, "I FUCKIN' HATE SOPOR."

"You fucking what?!" Anger crashes all over you like a tidal wave, and you start to shake with the power its taking you to keep from launching at him. "You said so your fucking self, you asshole, you said shit's been shit since you ran out of slime! Well I got you fucking slime! Be grateful for things you have before they're gone, believe me, I've learnt twice, in the hardest way possible!"

Gamzee drags a paw down his face, taking away flakes of dried paint that float in the air between you, dancing in the light streaming out.

"Terezi," he uses your real name, "I NEVER MOTHERFUCKIN' SAID JACK SHIT."

"THEN WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"

"IT AIN'T NONE A YOUR BUSINESS, BITCH!"

 

"Okay, no." You say, quietly, and the air is filled with the smell of storms, "I am not going to let you have to learn what I did the hard way. Fuck you for being so lucky to have someone like me to spare you the pain. So let's do a quick run-through of what you're going to do. You're going to get high off your highblood ass and I'm going to bathe you, because you are putrid, and by the time you're out of sopor and ready to resume your life as a feral pig in this dungeon then be my guest because I'll be dead and thank God for that." You clap your hands together. "Are we all clear?"

"Fuck you. It'll rot y'motherfuckin' pan. Shit ain't wicked." Gamzee says apathetically, and then, you can't believe it, he turns around and BEGINS TO WALK OFF AND OH NO HE IS NOT GOING TO DO THAT.

You dart in front of him as he lumbers away and shove him as hard as your little body can and he doesn't budge.

"Get outta the way." He mutters and bats you hard into a wall. "I gotta... I gotta be alone."

"Bullshit." You growl, coughing once, and a thin line of blood trickles out of the side of your mouth. You stand up as quick as possible, but the world suddenly whirs around you and you have to lean a hand on the wall. "You're full of shit. No one wants to be alone. Look at me." He keeps walking, one foot forward, the other foot forward.

"LOOK AT ME!" You yell, specks of blood flying out of your mouth and splattering on the floor in front of you. He grinds to a halt and lazily turns his head towards you.

You mutter something but you're too weak to say it loud. He can't hear. You double over, hands on your knees as you hack and shudder until a pool of blood big enough to reflect your hideous self in collects at your feet. You raise your head, staring at him pathetically. He glares at you and moves closer.

Then you pounce, running at him at full force and throwing yourself at him like a huge bullet, you crash into him and a few bones crack, some for you, some for him, and you tumble and roll into the room full of cocoons and wrestle until he inevitably overpowers you, but you're quick and you snap up and your ribcage hurts so bad and you throw out an arm and its full of broken bones and slam the door closed then turn the key and throw it so it lands in a tub of slime and sinks slowly to the bottom, and you lose all feeling in your fingers. Gamzee howls and thrashes on the floor, the light is blinding him and if you weren't blind already you'd be squinting too, its been so long since you smelt so much and its overwhelming.

Gamzee lunges at you and throws you against the door, he yells, "OPEN THE MOTHERFUCKING DOOR OR WE'RE GOING TO DIE," and grabs you by both horns and smashes your head back and forth into the metal until you raise a slightly numb foot, the one with feeling is barely keeping you off the ground and kick him as hard as you can in the stomach, which isn't hard at at but it's enough to make him lose his rhythm so you duck out and climb up the recuprecoon nearest to you, its lumpy, bumpy, squishy and taller than Troll Mt. Everest but you scramble up, adrenaline barely rushing out of your pores as you scale the cocoon, slipping once but pure desperation driving you up, up but gravity and the world and all its problems weighing you down, down, you feel less like you're climbing a bed and more like you're climbing up a cliff, there are no fucking footholds on this thing, is it a cocoon for a fucking neckbeast is it, but with a final surge of energy you grasp the rim, but with your numb, broken arm so you've still got a ways to go and you howl in pain as you pull yourself up and stand, teetering on the edge, you feel a sudden moment of bliss, pure peace, harmony as you gaze down, heights were never your thing even though you couldn't see them, and when Gamzee catches up to reality and stops banging his huge fists on the teal stain on the door, he looks to his right and you smell him one last time before plunging headfirst into the cocoon.

 

You're floating, or you're sinking, who could possibly use this much sopor, there's no noise in here but your beating, thumping heart in your ears. All around you there is a luminous lime glow that stimulates your nose into a frenzy. You open your mouth to exclaim something, anything, you're afraid you're dying but you end up with slime all in your mouth. It tastes like mint, like toothpaste, even, but the aftertaste is one of chemicals and you amend your last statement, its not like toothpaste, its more like mint shampoo, but its soothing and you realise you were quite thirsty, it tingles on your tongue and the roof of your mouth and you swallow in an overdramatic gulp before you know whats happening. you can feel it tingling on your limbs, its gets in your ears and up your nose so seeing is hard, but there's not much to see. You notice that the pang in your ribs has become duller, your arms are still numb and your legs don't really feel attached to you but they were always more of a bother anyway, everything is a note calmer, there in the translucent slime and light refracts around you in rays, moving across lazily and everything feels like its stopped, or started going in slow motion, feeling is starting to return to you, from the inside out, your arms, wrists, palms, fingers, your thighs, knees, shins, ankles, heels, toes, your heartbeat has slowed immensely and you feel a bit drowsy. In silence, you stop free-falling through this endless recuprecoon and turn yourself slowly up, you know its up because you can just make out this light circle far in front of you and you hope to fuck that its the rim. Slowly you swim up, the viscosity of the slime not helping you at all and you're running out of breath, hell, you're out of breath already but you have to keep going up, and as you go nearer the light glows brighter and you can hear Gamzee's muffled cries as he pounds at the door, he howls once and then there is more silence and a dull thud as he sinks to the floor.

Your head breaks through the surface of the slime and you gasp for breath and cough several times, sopor drips out of your lungs like you're a fountain, you spurt it everywhere and roll out of the cocoon, down the side like you're the third little pig in the butter churn, the one that survived too! You'll survive! You _just_ survived!

You hit the cold hard ground right on your semi-healed arm and groan a bit, you are covered in slime and it's neither a good look nor feel for you, it feels, well, it feels slimey, and okay you're not going to try and label things, nothing's black and white now, the colours around you pulse and dart about, you wonder what colour you are and look down, turns out you're a bright red, _yowzah (what?)_! You rise high, high into the air and float down, down like a feather, the colours are joining together and breaking apart, becoming new and big things, dancing merrily and enjoying the fleeting thing that is life, death comes tomorrow but tomorrow never comes, you're young, you're free and you soar, mix and mingle, wait, what the fuck, is that a fucking moobeast, it's a quackbeast, ten quackbeasts, no, its a hive, a moobeast you say! The thing disperses as you float nearer and the colours zoom about, this one's off to market, this one's staying home, this one had roast beef, this one had none, and you leap up and go whee, whee, whee, whee all the way... home!

You're home! You stand at the base of your treehouse, a home so long revered, you feel like you're in a dream as you float, walking is for mortals and you, you've ascended and you're about to have tea with giants, dragons, knights around a circle table, damsels in distress, _et toi,_ je suis une dame! Une _belle_ dame! Una damisela en angustia! C'est _moi_ , soy _yo!_ What the fuck are you speaking different languages for?!

Troll Paul Revere.

You blink and you're high up in your tree house, your arms resting on your window as you stare out into the trees. Ah, if only a brave knight were to come and slay the dragon that trapped you in this awful prison, its so high and you have vertigo! You're so high!

Hark, hark, you hear approaching men! No, amendment, man, or, woman, or, gender-nonconforming entity, whatever, you can hear the thump, thump, thump of hoofbeast hooves and out in the conveniently placed clearing comes a knight! His stallion whinnes as it leaps on two feet, throwing its great mane into the winds and the knight, your saviour, brandishes a fine blade, he must have just sharpened it, it would peel apple skins right off you can see that now, just peel around the apple and you come up with this long spiral of a skin, or a pomelo, if you've ever peeled a pomelo, its tough, believe me, and I've never been able to peel one in one go, but with that fucking sword I just might have hope.

"The time has come!" He yells to no one in particular, scaring his horse a bit. The knight dismounts and bows deeply, his blonde hair almost scraping the ground, his hands around his ankles, then he places his palms firm on the ground, leaps back into plank position, then chaturanga, cobra pose, up to downward facing dog, is this guy doing fucking sun series yoga outside your hive? He does thirteen boring, boring rounds of sun series and you're about to fall asleep then another knight comes galloping fast into the clearing, falls off his nag and rolls at the feet of the first knight.

"THE BLOOD HAS COME!" He screeches and around you leaves fall from trees like autumn came early.

"That makes no fucking sense, dude." Yoga knight says.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, FUCKASS!" The second knight retaliates, brandishing dual sickles, getting one caught in the ground.

"I propose that we fight for milady's hand."

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, FUCKASS!"

Yoga knight takes his sharp, sharp sword and it glints in the sunlight. He holds it out in front of him with both hands on the hilt, but the second knight has but to touch the end of his sickle to the blade and half of it falls clean off and on the ground.

"Legendary piece of shit!" Yoga knight cries and throws down the sword. "How will I ever defeat the dragon or this peasant who both seek to hinder me from claiming milady's hand?" and you wish he'd stop clamoring for your hand, it's really not one of the most attractive parts of you (but you are quite fond of your soft ears.)

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, FUCKASS!" Karkat (yeah okay you're going to start using their names now) screams again, then he runs back into the trees and builds a nice hut in the woods or something I don't care.

Dave steps forward with his hands down by his side. "Oh, mighty dragon, come forth at once, ye coward, ye tallow face, and let I, Dave, the knight, of time, that is true, lop off ye head because I want to have mad sex with Terezi come on mate let me at'cha."

"You dumbass!" You hear yourself yelling down at Dave, the knight, of time, that is true, "My fucking dragon never hatched! She's still stewing in her egg liquids or something, so get your pretty ass up here!" You let down your hair so he may climb it, but it barely reaches your shoulders and Dave, the knight, of time, that is true, takes the stairs instead. Upon arrival you pounce onto him and kiss him deeply, hands flung around his shoulders and he kisses you back, you walk backwards with him onto your balcony seat and fuck many times come a lot its all over the place that is _not_ why you are here Karkat comes back and hollers, " TEREZI! I BROUGHT YOU FLOWERS!" And in his hand he holds a beautiful rose, like those roses you see in films and they're so fucking pretty holy shit and fake too, you wonder why all those pretty things are fake like personalities and boobs, and you reach out to lower your hair for him but Dave, the knight, of time, that is true, is in a fit of jealousy and cries, "If you cannot choose between me and me, because Kitkat here is invalid and I'm really fucking valid then I guess milady shall have nobody!" And he pushes you out of the window and you fall, twisting and turning and grabbing at straws, your scalemates watch as you fall through the air, sneering, jeering, Limemuzzle dangles from a noose and when you reach out to grab hold of his foot he laughs and breaks off the tree, falling with you and you scream, cry, " Stop calling me fucking milady, Dave, the knight, of time, that is true, you make me sound like some fucking Milano cookie!" Before you are engulfed in darkness and you spin and turn or stay quite still as the world moves on around you because no one could give less of a fuck about you now, Karkat, Dave, you don't choose soon enough and you'll lose them both!

 

You're alone, back in your room in the Veil. White noise echoes loud in your ears. White noise, white noise, white noise.

"You're a real sight."

You whirl around, look side to side and sneak a peek under you, but you can't see. But you can't see anyway! But you heard, you're sure, you heard-

"I'm over here, Pyrope."

You snap your head right so hard you hear it crack, and you'd nurse your wound but there's Vriska, she's sitting cross-legged on the floor right there and she's smirking at you.

"Vriska!" You cry, tears suddenly cascading down your cheeks as you rush towards her but with a flutter of her wings she's three metres in the air and you fall to the ground in a heap.

"No, stop, you'll wreck the gossamer." She says, but you can tell from the look on her face that she's just enjoying watching you lay there tangled in yourself and high off your ass.

"Vriska, what the fuck are you doing here?"

"Judging you. It's quite fun, you should try."

"No... But... You're.."

"Dead? Whatever."

"Whatever?!" You cry, leaping up and staring at her, your face flushed teal and your fingers in a fist. "I - I killed you!"

"Yeah," Vriska inspects a fingernail and brings out her hand to examine the full set, "Thanks for that, by the way."

"But you're here!"

"No I'm not!" She darts away and you whip around. She's right up close to you and her breath is warm on your cheeks.

"I'm here." She grasps your hands tight in hers and grins. Your words choke in your throat and you stare at her as she slides her palms slowly up your arms, you can feel her tingling touch as she brushes slightly against your skin and her grin gets wider and wider, she's closer now and her hands stop where your sleeves start and playfully, she touches your bra strap, you're teal in the face now, she's trailing her hands down your shirt, roaming, and she grabs you under the arms and flings you high into the air with her, you soar and sink and circle the room once, twice, three times then fall, like a leaf, onto the ground. You collapse in a heap on the floor and giggle together, hand in hand and her laugh is like a million little bells tinkling inside your head.

"Vriska, am I dreaming? Am I... Dead?" You ask, and the light in the room goes dimmer. She stops laughing and your insides twist inside of you as she shrinks away, her features drawn into a serious expression.

"Yes."

What?"

"No."

"Vriska!"

She stands up and you're about to stand with her but you're suddenly too weak to follow her and the warmth beside you is now freezing cold. "It's the sopor."

You touch the corner of your mouth and pull away to see a hint of green slime on the tip of your finger. "So... You're not real."

"Nope."

"You're dead."

"As a doormouse."

"I killed you."

"This is true."

"I'm sorry!"

You cry suddenly, sniffing and snuffling and covering your face with your hands, God, you killed her and now you're high and you're seeing things. You expect her to hug you, or comfort you in some way but she stands her ground, studying you as you shake in a heap on the floor. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." You repeat over and over again but she doesn't say a word. You look up to make sure she's not gone, wiping a mixture of snot and tears away from your face with your arm. She's still there.

"Vriska?"

"Yeah?"

"Forgive me."

At this she smirks again and drops down beside you. You lay your head on her shoulder and she slings her arm around you, rocking back and forth. You feel her chest rise and fall with each steady breath and you're the slightest bit proud of yourself for dreaming up a hallucination this realistic.

"Forgive me, Vriska." You say again, feeling a lock of her brittle hair with your hand.

"Terezi, I can't."

You look up at her, startled. "Why?"

She chuckles, but it's a mean chuckle and she pushes you gently off her shoulder. "You dumbass." She laughs meanly, getting up again. God, she moves a lot. "How can I? I'm not Vriska, I'm a thing inside your head! You killed the real Vriska and she'll be dead forever! So you lay off the fucking sopor, it rots your thinkpan from the inside out because Vriska is never going to come back, and she's never going to forgive you!"

You're too shocked to give a reply so she continues, "Did you really believe I was real? Are you that fucking high? Did you think if I forgave you that meant you were all clear?"

You stare at her pathetically, like a young woofbeast in a window, and the shame in your eyes betrays you.

"God," she laughs, throwing her head back, "You're so deluded."

"But-" You begin to say, what the fuck is going on, but she cuts you off like the real Vriska would.

"For fuck's sake, she's  _dead._ She's  _dead_ and she's  _gone -_  forever. Forever, twice! That's eight evers, and she'll always be  _dead_ and  _gone_ in all of them and she will never,  _ever_ forgive you!"

She turns on her heel and starts to walk away, and you're too laden down with imaginary chains to call after her, or crawl after her.

She stops and looks at your simpering figure over her shoulder. "By the way, what the fuck is in that corner of Gamzee's?" She remarks before continuing on, and you make the mistake of blinking and she's gone again.

Guilt! You're consumed by guilt, and the doors open on you on all sides and multicoloured Faygo spills in like blood from an elevator, it hits you like a wave from all directions and you choke, the awful soda fills your lungs and you choke and choke some more as you flail against the current, you can't tell whether you're swimming up or down and you're out of breath, out of air, you're suffocating, dying-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have allergies so this sucks and thats my excuse


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its a bit gory i guess but satirically so

 

yes this drawing is very very shitty its one of the last ones i did

* * *

 

 

 

"Teresa. Teresa! Fuckin' fuck."

You're cold. You're freezing and you can't feel your limbs. Your brow is saturated with sweat, despite your internal temperature and you can't smell anything, meaning you're also subsequently double blind. You try and gain consciousness in your arms and legs, but you still can't feel them, and even as you sniff so hard your thinkpan threatens to come out of your ears you can't see your limbs either. You shiver and your teeth chatter like maracas so you can't speak either or you'll bite your tongue off. There is a ringing in your ears, and whispers, you can't make out what they're saying over the ringing and the pounding inside of your head. Sight, smell, touch, hearing, you've lost 4/5ths of your senses, you're 4/5ths dead. In fact, the one thing you are sure of is a burning sensation in your mouth, at the back of your throat, like someone set fire to your tonsils.

"Teresa, for fuck's sake."

The whisper comes clearer than the others, it rises above and you capture the meaning of those words and cling on to them. Teresa, for fuck's sake. Teresa, who the fuck is that? Is it you? No, cut the bullshit, your name is Terezi. Wait. Teresa? You know only one person that calls you Teresa.

"Teresa, stop kickin' me."

Strong, calloused hands pin your frame to the pile of horns you're lying in, and a few soft honks sound from underneath you. Metal digs into your back. You feel your mouth open, morph, trying to form words, closing.

"Sit up." The same loud whisper says, louder than before or the ringing has died down. You wonder how you're supposed to sit up with the weight of the world sitting on your chest. One of the hands holding you down slips around your head and moves you forward, there is a horrible pain in your back as it moves away from the semi-soft bedding you were lying on and is left to hold your heavy head upright. As you reach what you believe to be a 90 degree angle, something in your shifts and you gasp, then you wheeze and cough. Air flows through your lungs again and you realise you haven't been breathing for a good while. Your nose comes unblocked soon after and you stop breathing through your mouth, which is still left gaping open and drooling. The ringing and the whispers vanish, but the pounding is still incessant and threatens to blow your skull right open. As you breathe in with your nose, a fuzzy picture forms in your thinkpan, marred by the thudding of what feels like a pendulum, swinging from side to side and hitting the sides of your temples every time. A great hulk of a guy, eyelids drooping, over dull, glazed and yellow oculars, sunken eyebags running right around, a smear of white across his face, a dark grey on his mouth, his jaw slack and upper teeth protruding lazily, a tangled mane of hair framing this shitshow of a mug and two horns like curly fries sticking up and out, and something on his face, grey masses hitting him, flailing wildy and his patience quickly draining from his smile, he speaks and you hear: "Teresa, stop motherfuckin' kickin' me." You're aware of your arms now, as they reach forward with no force of your own and pummel the cheekbones of the face in front of you, clawing at his eyes and hanging onto his sagging lower lip. Your legs are kicking too, kicking him hard in the chest, he's holding one still with his great paw, moving to and fro with the motion of your limb inside. A weight you didn't know was there slowly slides off your abdomen, like a slug, and you slow down your punches and kicks too, beginning to realise the predicament you're in. You're covered in sweat but you're freezing from the inside out, you shake and you bob up and down in your seat, sniffing hard as snot leaks out of your nostrils and down into your mouth. Worry knits up your brow, you try and shrink into a small and insignificant ball, and you squeak when a horn goes off under your foot. But when you squeak, you realise you can make a sound, so you try and speak, but your mouth is dry and your throat is hot. No dice. Gamzee notices your attempt and brings you close, scooping you up like a small meowbeast and cradling you in his huge lap. His warmth still doesn't penetrate the chill inside of you, but you're too tired to squirm anymore and your throat is lit on fire, you can all but taste the flames. Gamzee takes your hands in one of his and looks down on you like the Troll Virgin Mary. Wait. But does that make you Troll Jegus in this metaphor? What are you fucking on about?

You lie limp on Gamzee's thighs and he takes his other hand off of you and hesitates, glances from side to side like someone may be watching, then he slowly brings down a finger to your cheek and wipes away the sweat and snot before gently papping you. He paps you up and down, around your face and you're very shocked. He can sense this, because he parts his lips and you steal a sniff of his large canines before he shooshes you, papping you more with two fingers now, but thats more than can fit on your face. What... What is he _doing?_ No, no no no, you don't want this. Why is he papping you? Shooshing you? Is he- could he be- _pale_ for you? Oh, no. God forbid. No, stop. You raise a hand to your face and grab his fingers, but you don't have the power to stop him from papping you. This is so wrong. You- you can't be his moirail! No, your only moirail... Vriska...

"I saw her." You blurt out, surprising both yourself and him. He stops papping you and his mouth morphs into a confused line. He presumably marks your statement as some drunken ranting and is about to resume his pale practices when you try again, the fire in your mouth making it hard for you to say anything with more than one syllable, "Vriska. I saw her."

"I saw a fish wi'legs, wearin' combat boots. Don't be thinkin' you motherfuckin' special or nothin'." Gamzee shrugs, and reaches for your face again, but this time you grab hold of his fingers and keep them still.

"No, Gamzee. I can't." you slide and wriggle out of his lap and land on the pile of horns again, assorted honks sound upon your impact. "I can't be your moirail. Vriska' s my moirail."

"Vriska is fuckin' dead." Gamzee says, moving his paw towards you again but you roll out of the way. "Fuck, Teresa. Let her go."

"No, no she said something." You say, racking your pan to try and remember, you killed her, she sat by you and you cried, her arm was slung around your shoulder, you asked her to forgive you and she laughed and broke your little heart, she wasn't real, Vriska would never forgive you, she was fuckin' dead, to quote Gamzee, she got up and left you on your ass, she turned-

"What th'fuck is in that corner of yours, Gamzee?"

Beside you, he starts, then regains his composure. "Ain't nothin'."

"There's obviously somethin' if you're all over it all'a the time."

He shakes his head, and dandruff snows all over you. "Ain't motherfuckin' nothin'."

You sit up, then stand up, tottering on your feet. Gamzee reaches out and grabs you by the arm. "Ain't nothin'. Si'down." But you shake him off and start for the dark corner, your vision still blurred and you accidentally take two steps with your left foot, but you gain momentum, Vriska urges you forwards.

"No, no, no." Gamzee tries to get up behind you but he's too heavy for himself. You're almost at a run now, this room was never that big, you trip over a pie tin, it's full of slime and now the slime is on the ground, Gamzee slips on it when he lunges for you and you reach the dark corner, the light from the last flickering bulb doesn't diffuse this far, and you take a great big sniff.

Heads. Five heads. Four on a table, one on the ground in front of it. The smell of sweat and horse hairs, the smell of tea and flower petals, of canned sardines and hair gel, glitter and tacky glue, peanut butter and hay... All the people that Vriska killed. At least, all the heads. What is this, some kind of sick fucking joke? What was he going to do with these? Taunt you? Did he know?

You whirl around, stopping after 180 degrees but your thinkpan goes full circle and doesn't stop. "What the fuck is this?" You rasp, half dead with shock. Gamzee is glaring at you, hovering over you and cutting off the light in the background. He gnashes his teeth, his eyes going red again.

"I told you to MIND YOUR OWN MOTHERFUCKIN' BUSINESS."

You step back and kick Tavros's head while doing so. This sets Gamzee off and he howls, his head turned upwards and his arms outstretched, fingers curved and claws unsheathed, then he grabs you and throws you, you land in a pile of sopor pies and you leap up, fuck this guy, one second he wants to pap you, the next-

You're black for him. So unequivocally black, black dripping from your every orifice as you run towards him and jump, sinking your teeth into his shoulder, he howls in pain and rips you from him, you spit out a mouthful of blood and fabric and he swings you hard into the wall beside you, telling you to go fuck yourself, hard, with a razor, and you spit teeth into his face and nail him hard in the groin with your foot. He drops you and as he doubles over you dodge his horn and leap onto his back, clinging like a leech as you take hold of two handfuls of his greasy hair and yank them out of his scalp, he arches back and throws his hands in the air but he can't quite get hold of you and you laugh manically, yanking his hair like you're weeding a field, then he finds your legs wrapped around his waist and tries to pry them off, it doesn't work so he quickly walks backwards then slams into a wall and you get squished and shriek, he grabs both your legs by the shins and pulls them hard in both directions so you feel like they're about to snap off. You elbow him in the head, pull out fistfulls of hair but he keeps on, determined to split you in two, you're both crying in pain and tears stream down both of your cheeks until you seize his horn in your hand and pull back, hoping to get a yelp but instead he just _moans._

His grip on you relaxes and you feel something sinking in your stomach. You allow yourself to be brought around front of Gamzee, your hand still wrapped tight around his horn. He turns to the wall and presses you to it, you both breathe heavily into each other's faces, the smell of sopor lingering in the air between you. He reaches a finger to your own horn and touches around the base of it and your heart skips a beat. "Fuck." You whisper, and he starts to rub his finger back and forth across your horn. You take his other horn in your other hand and he sighs, his pupils loll a bit back into his head. "Woah, wait." You say suddenly, and his finger stops short. "I want an explanation."

"You don't get a motherfuckin' explanation, you retarded cunt." He growls, his hand snaking around your horn and holding it in a fist, making you groan loud and gross. "Tell me, you fucker." You say again, your voice deeper with anger. You slide your hands up and down his horns, tickling in places and his knees buckle slightly. "Killed -ohh- killed Equius - ah- Nepeta, Eridan killed Feferi -fuck, fuck- Kanaya -oh, fuck- killed Eridan, Vriska killed-" You stop short when he mentions Vriska. He... She... She only killed Tavros? Only one person? And... How the fuck... How the fuck did you not _realise?_ What... You... You executed an innocent person? You... You're not an executioner... You're a fucking murderer! A fucking murderer! And Gamzee... You're about to hate-fuck a MURDERER? Someone who _lied_ under oath, who let the last person you loved DIE of a crime he commited?

"Kept Tavbro's head, fucking all up n' loved him, wanted to have sloppy troll makeouts w'him, red for him, fucking died..." Gamzee mumbles to no one in particular, still massaging your horn with his palm, and he snaps to attention when you punch him hard in the side of his face.

"FUCK YOU!" You screech, hitting him hard with both hands as he stands, holding you up by the horn and completely dumbfounded. "YOU LET ME KILL VRISKA FOR MURDERS YOU COMMITED!"

"BITCH DESERVED IT, TAVBRO'S DEAD BECAUSE A'HER!" Gamzee tightens a fist around your neck and puts another hand around your waist, wringing you out like a dishcloth, a full-body Chinese burn. You both hear the bones in your spine crack with wild abandon.

"YOU MOTHERFUCKER!" Your arms are still free and hitting him in the face, only he's too preoccupied with twisting you open like one of those twisty ice-creams which are too much work, honestly, and you sputter with his tight grip on your throat, but you seize him by one of the large veins throbbing on his neck, one hand over the other and constrict because your life does depend on it. It's his cue to yell something rude with swear words in it but he's too purple in the face, with both twisting you, it hurts like fuck by the way, everything does, and subsequently nothing does, and you're both choking and wheezing for air. You blink a trickle of blood out of your dead eye, your legs twisted full circle now, and you both let go of each other at the same moment and collapse. Your skull hits hard against the floor and you taste fresh blood, hope its not yours. Your throat burns from the inside out, and you have no idea why. But you can't wait, you can't rest now, you have to kill this motherfucker, accomplice to murder, you're the murderer but it's his fault, his fucking chucklevoodoos, you leap up with energy you don't have and spit teeth and blood onto the floor, it hurts beyond the descriptive power of words, the pain blinds you, or would blind you if you could see, Gamzee's had the same idea and is on one knee, his shirt soaked in blood and sweat, his nose crooked and crusted with blood and his nails worn flat from scratching you, there are scratches on you, down and up, everywhere, the pain is immense, _oh my my, oh hey hey._ Here he comes.

Blood is pouring out of the two of you like you're water faucets on a good day. His face, which is right up next to yours as he pulls your hair, is bruised purple through the paint, most of which has flaked off in the fray and flutters as little specks in the dim shafts of light about you. Blood leaks out of the corners of his mouth and his nose is a bit too much to the left, his left, you right this with a good knuckle to the nose and blood and dry boogers get all over your hand.

You've knawed a good sized hole in his leg and are about to snuggle into his femur and call it a night before he seizes you by the arm, you wish he'd mind your broken bone but ow, your shoulder is dislocated as he yanks you up and swings you around in circles, you holler and spit flies everywhere, you're the teal version of green in the face and you really wish you hadn't had all that flat Faygo when you vomit, it's like if a ceiling fan vomited while a clown was swinging it round. He's obviously disgusted and he's blinded by the slimy chunks of what in his eyes so he falls and you fall with him, crashing into the pile of sopor pies in the side of the room and you lose a tooth upon impact as well as a litre or two of blood when his fingernails dig into your bicep and slice down as he falls.

For God knows how long the two of you lie in the slime, headfirst, you recall the burning sensation at the back of your throat and risk a tentative lick and fuck if that doesn't feel good. It's like a fire extinguisher putting out a small but nonetheless sick fire, the menthol taste soothes you and gets between your teeth, under your tongue, down your windpipe and no, that's not normally supposed to happen and your body lets you know by choking and coughing, you take your better arm (both are fucked beyond good, but this one has more bone in it) and plant your palm down beside you and lift your chest up, wheezing and coughing, teal blood mixes with lime sopor and your hair is matted, clumpy and stuck to your face.

Once your lungs expel enough of the slime and a good bit of your blood you push down on the ground with your hand and it isn't easy on what's left of your elbow, and you flip over onto your back with a groan and a croak then a sigh. Once you pick the mats of hair out of your face you turn your head and see Gamzee lying still as stock, face in a dish of pie (you say pie but it's really just sopor in a metal dish, no crust or meringue topping) and not really showing any signs of breathing. You'd worry, but you're high. You can't trust your senses like this, he probably isn't even there. Just a figment of your imagination. A cluster of mould on your decaying thinkpan. You would think of more metaphors (metaphors? Analogies?) but you're also tired. Its more from the loss of blood than anything else. You hope you don't die - what are you saying, who cares at this point, but your point (the one you care about) is that your eyelids feel like they're lifting ridiculously heavy weights, you're in a pool of slime and blood, but mostly blood, and you... You're going to sleep...


	5. (Skippable)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has guns and suicide in it and if you dont want that this entire thing is optional to read 
> 
> its also relatively short so youre not missing out on anything 
> 
> but if youre reading this near the publication date im more likely than not going to make it longer and more pathetic

* * *

 

 

 

You settle into a comfortably repetitive routine with your new kismesis. You wake up forking or kniving or whatever the blackrom version or spooning is, you each have a steaming mug of Faygo (decaf for you) while he pretends to read the pretend newspaper and you really hate on him for pretending to read the pretend paper at the pretend table, then you both figure out a new way to do sopor slime (your favourite to date was making it into neat little lines and snorting it through a crazy straw. You're kind of an expert at nose stuff.) and lie around, jamming feelings, pulling stars out of the sky, hallucinating wildly until you both sober up a tiny bit, then you're like filthy, angry powder kegs ready to be tapped. Being considerate hatemates, you take turns setting each other off and initiating big brawls in which you bleed more and break more until you're out of things to bleed and break then you collapse, sometimes in your pies and sometimes not, before dozing off once more. It continues like this for who cares how long, you've started disregarding time and all his affiliates, that is true, and you only live to get high and hatefuck every so often, when you're angry enough at each other. You feel a bit like a housewife, not that you have any idea what a housewife is, and Gamzee is your spouse of sorts, left the church for a finacée, let him hate, man of faith, and you've both settled down together for better or for worse although you'll admit most of the time it has been for the worse, but you revel in repetition, it keeps you sane beyond the slime and you wouldn't have it any other way, you're home at last. That's why you're surprised to wake up, inhale a draft of rank, stifling air and then turn to smell the barrel of a gun in your face.

"W-(hic)What?" You ask Mr. Gun Barrel politely and groggily, and you'd shake his hand, but the only one in sight is the one wrapped around Mr. Trigger (a close relative) and you feel long, bony fingers press down on your head, holding it in place.

"Fucker." Gamzee says above you, you look up and grin at him with your half set of teeth. "Fuck you too." You reply, you make a move to shift and curtsey while pinned to the ground but it looks more like a spasm so you just smile wider. "Where'd you get the gun?"

Gamzee returns a slightly less toothless smile before raising the gun to his own head, making a clicking sound with his tongue and tossing it on the ground beside you to help you up. Shove you up, you mean. "Been doin' a spot a adventurin'. Al'up in this motherfucker. Locker room, fulla the shit. Guns, bullets, armor, all this adult shit. Hit the motherfucker of all jackpots, did I Teresa."

"The fuck is a locker room full of adult shit doing here?"

"The fuck is a bright ass motherfuckin' room of 'coons doin' here is the motherfuckin' query."

"Whatever. Don't look a gift hoofbeast in the eye. Lead the way." You make a move to stand up but Gamzee pushes you down. You scowl and try again, he topples you like a bowling ball a pin.

"Nuh. Look what else." He reaches into the pocket of his baggy pants and takes out a long grubpipe. Contraband, this particular one is, at least on Alternia where minors mill around, huffing anything green and shrubby. "You want?"

"I shouldn't."

"I don't give half a motherfuck."

He dips the pipe in sopor and lights the end of it with a lighter he got from the locker. He takes a long fucking drag, his eyes loll back into his head a bit and his cheeks suck in with the effort. You snatch the pipe out of his mouth and stick it in yours. It's squishy and wet, and you suck in fuuu _uuuuuuuuuuuuuck._

When you finally realise you're alive, you're in the nude on top of Gamzee. He, too, is conveniently naked, and your mind clears enough to register what you must have just done. Well, it was less of your bin lid of a thinkpan and more of the huge fucking cuts at over you and him, what used to be your better arm is now equivalent in damage to your worse arm, whose status as a barely functioning mass of flesh has also been knocked down a few notches, and you two just look like a general mess. You get up, bones in both of your bodies cracking in ways that shouldn't happen, and you mosey around the room, sniffing for where your clothes may have gone. Your shirt is in a sopor tray which has dried out over time, leaving a crusty mound of fabric heaped in the middle. Your bra has been filled with sopor, one cup brimming and the other nearing the dregs, and you hate to speculate why. Your glasses are snapped in half, you find them in the pocket of your pants which you've been standing on for a good while. Dressed to impress a fucking cockroach, you crinkle in your shirt as you sit in the horn pile, _crinkle_ honk _crackle_ , and you balance a leftover pie on your knee as you drag your fingers through the slime, it oozes through your index finger and thumb, troll finger lickin' good, I'm about to be sued for copyright, as you regard your kismesis lying half-dead on the ground in front of you with utmost and pure hate. Fuck the guy.

Your attention darts around because you're so high, but it keeps coming back to the gun on the ground in front of you. Back on Alternia, your weapons were like fucking plastic toys compared to this. You reach out to touch it, its squishy and somewhat alive, as is everything on your planet, and you hold the gun in your hands, it squelches as you move it from palm to palm. One bullet. All it takes. Trolls are very mortal, aren't they, if they can be offed with a shard of metal. Or if they get shivved with a sharp blade in the back, maybe the blade is attached to a red cane, with a red dragon on it? You realise with a jolt that you aren't over Vriska. You aren't over anything. All you've been doing is deluding yourself, eating bed with a murderous, fucking murderous clown, suitable company for a murderess, a fucking murderess like you.

"One bullet." You say out loud. One knife through the chest, one beam of magic through the bladder-heart, one arrow to the knee, one slice through the torso one error in the system one lance through the heart one club to the head ONE BULLET THROUGH THE BRAIN-

You loathe yourself. You loathe every fiber of your being, every muscle, every tendon that moves the gun up, closer to your head, you smell the scent of metal as it draws and you taste the taste of metal as you put the barrel in your mouth and you hear the chink of metal grating against your teeth. You're going to meet Vriska. She'll fucking hate you, she will, and you'll hate yourself too, but what are you doing here? You're scarred and scabbed all over, you're missing teeth and full bones, it feels like, you're so unhealthy. The pain is so bad and so chronic that you can't remember feeling any better. You wrap a finger around the trigger, you don't feel sad, you aren't happy, not numb, get that bullshit out of your pan, you're at peace, remember? Out of the corner of your nose you sniff Gamzee shifting, a bit at first then a lot, but its all replaced by a ringing sound, have you pulled the trigger?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is long you will fall asleep and my hands will fall off because i typed all of this on my ipod at 3am
> 
> also it has sollux and kanaya in it

 

* * *

 

 

 

You're dazed. You can smell shapes and dull colours, but you can't make out anything familiar. Look, that thing over there looks like a fish... that one's a kite, there's a leaf, a flower - what a pretty flower, every petal is a different colour; you reach out to touch it and-

"Hello, Terezi." Says the face you've just shoved your hand into.

Your vision swims this way and that, trying to make sense of everything but stumbling onto everything else... Then you cough and sniff and you can smell again.

"Kanaya?"

It's Kanaya alright, in all her glory, she's recoiled away from you and is primly dabbing at her face where you've spit all over her. She's different now, she's made an effort to conceal her luminosity. She has a purple scarf, it reeks of sardines, that she's wrapped around her neck and mouth. She's slathered her nose, which sticks out over the top of the scarf, with some kind of greyish paste rested on the bridge of her nose is a pair of cracked square sunglasses - you recognise Equius from the smell of sweat. She dons a sun hat with a ridiculously wide brim that goes well past her eyebrows, which she routinely flicks up to clear her vision. Her hands are gloved and she has a butcher's apron strapped around her body, it's stained beyond repair with assorted bloods, and despite all of these peculiar coverings she still manages to retain her air of confidence and proper mannerisms. You'll admit, she still looks like a fine lady. She turns back to you after rubbing at her face, some of the grey paste gone from her cheeks but still functioning its purpose and glances at you down her nose as if trying to preserve her dignity. "Yes." She says in her mature voice, still articulating clearly through the scarf around her mouth, "How are you feeling?"

Finally your judgment falls onto yourself and you grimace slightly. You are in a recuprecoon, temptingly gelatinous slime oozes through, up and around every orrfice. Your arms are covered in scabs and fresh cuts where you can see through the miles of bandages wrapped around you, and you feel slightly like a mummy. You're missing a few nails and one index finger. Your hair has been scrapped into a tight ponytail which pulls your face up and back, stretching out deep cuts under your eyes and making you bare your teeth slightly. You're missing a lot of your upper jaw, but your breath feels minty, either because you've been eating mint-flavoured bedsheets or because Kanaya must have brushed your teeth (you also remind yourself that you really need some slime right now, you're on the verge of breathing fire now but Kanaya is watching.) Your lips are chapped but you can taste Troll Vaseline (strawberry) on them and you smell Troll Vick's Vaporub on the tip of your crooked nose. The caked layers of dried blood have been wiped clean from your face and body and your ravaged grubscars have been bandaged. You also note with some alarm that you are very naked.

You decide to go for the polite answer and raise a split thumb at Kanaya.

"I found you in a heap behind some lab equipment, folded up onto yourself like an article of Troll Ikea furniture. You had a horn sho- inserted up your bottom and you were saturated in sopor slime, not breathing. Care to provide some context?"

Hmmm. What to do? You can't sell out Gamzee, before you would even before an offer was made, but you're in quadrants now, and you're not a snitch.

"I have no _(wheeze, cough)_ idea. My bum does hurt, though _(hack cough)_."

She obviously doesn't buy it but also doesn't pursue the subject. She _click-clacks_ to the side of the room and _click-clacks_ back, holding a novelty sized tub of Troll Vick's Vaporub as big as your caved-in head. "Troll Vick's Vaporub?" She asks.

"No, thank _(cough)_ you."

"I found a room that must have been an abandoned pharmacy. Bandages, Troll Panadol, Troll Vick's Vaporub - boxes and boxes of it - there was even a recuprecoon. What luck!"

"What _(hack, wheeze, sniff, hack hack, cough, sputter cough, wheeze [the combination is correct and the safe creaks open] sneeze cough sneeze wheeze cough-sneeze impossible! hack hack hack hack, sniff cough)_ luck!" You reply.

Kanaya places the tub of Troll Vick's Vaporub on a stack of books serving as an end table beside your cocoon. She taps the lid and smiles. "Just in case." She says before she settles down in a plush armchair, and by settle down you mean she perches right on the edge with her back straight as a stick and her legs clamped together, which is the very worst way to make use of such comfortable furniture, but she saved your damn life so you're not going to say anything. She reaches a delicate gloved hand towards a sweet jar on an overturned rubbish bin, the huge kind that's yellow with a toxic symbol on it that you put nuclear waste in, and extracts something white and lumpy out of the jar, smiling politely and holding it up to the light to see. You can smell it all the way over here and it's rank and unnecessarily strong. Garlic.

"I thought rainbow-drinkers hated garlic." You ask as you stew in your sopor. She turns the clove about in her fingers and then moves and rests her gaze on you.

"No, we love it."

She relaxes out of her stiff posture ever so slightly as she admires the garlic again, giving you no explanation. You ask for one.

"No, I thought it made you _(sputter, wheeze)_ die."

She smiles wider, evidently amused at your choice of words and lowers her hand.

"It's all a ruse," she explains with a dignified air, and you're loathe to tell her that you're not at a Tupperware party, you're the last of your kind and you're hiding from an evil rabid dog god. "We find this particular fruit very alluring, and we only pretend to hiss and melt when people hang bunches of it up so they believe they are safe and let their guards down. Honestly, who decided, out of all flora and fauna, that garlic was the way to go? How most curious."

"Oh," you say, intrigued, "What do you _(cough cough)_ do with it?"

"Ah, well it's good for..." She trails off, then picks back up again, "It does wonders for...", "I can use it as...", "It's a little known substitute for..." And this time the trail is gone.

She looks up at you, the slightest hint of shock showing through her dark glasses and promptly drops the clove back into the jar and seals it before getting up.

"I- well- enough questions, please dear, I, uh, must be going now. Have a rest." She turns and mutters to herself as she click-clacks out of the room hurriedly: _click-clack-click-clack-clickclackclickclack_ -the door shuts with more force than necessary behind her billowing sillouette.

You're very confused, but there's no time to dwell on the subject. You wait for her footsteps to recede before lowering your head to the surface of the slime and licking it quickly. Then you lick it again, and when that method doesn't prove fast enough for you, you start to lap at the sopor and feel the soothing liquid ooze down your sore throat, more effective than any lozenge. You gurgle slightly as you lower yourself down, savouring any slime you can get, even if you're floating around nude in it.

"What t'fuck are you doing?" Comes a raspy voice behind you and you nearly fall out of the cocoon. You turn as quick as the thick sopor will let you and smell Sollux, standing by the brim of the recuprecoon with his resting bitch face spitting all over you.

"Since when were you here?" You squeak, taken by surprise by this male troll just staring at your nude figure as you eat your own bed. God, you're embarrassing.

Sollux shrugs. "KK threw me down a phlight of phucking thairsh after I-I bust my eyesh out in a fight wif ED. Knocked me clean out. KN found me thhoon enougph."

You nod, but you didn't really catch what he was saying since the sopor is starting to work its wicked magic on your pan and colours smell brighter and pulse around the room. Sollux says something else, you can feel the shower of spit on your face but you don't acknowledge what he's saying until he takes you roughly by the horn and you squirm. He quickly pulls back.

"Thhorry, thorry." He mutters, backing away with his hands held out in front of his chest. Then he recovers his composure and tells you for the third time, "Get out oph the cocoon."

Ha ha, you must be really fucking high already because you could've sworn this guy just nabbed you by the horn and then told you to get out of the cocoon while you were quite obviously in the nude. But seriously, he's gonna throw a big electrical fit if you don't give him a response to his query soon. "Pardon?" You ask.

"Get out ophh'the cocoon."

You giggle, you're so fucking high.

"TZ," he sounds exasperated now, "I-I don't want to make thingth bad between uthh, and I-I'm athking you very nicehly now, to pretty pleathe theph out of the recuphrecoon."

"Sollux," you smile, wearing that face people wear when they've done something bad and are about to confess it to someone else in an 'unbiased way', "I'm so high _(cough)_ right now, it's true, I didn't want to tell you this but I've been taking sopor slime with Gamzee and I'm not over anything yet ESPECIALLY Vriska, did you know Gamzee killed Equius and Nepeta but Eridan killed Feferi? Wow! (hack, cough) Vriska only killed Tavros but somehow Gamzee's motherfucking chucklevoodoos managed to get to my head and I didn't realise Vriska was innocent, and I fucking _(cough, cough, cough, oooh)_ killed her, so who's the real murderer here? Yeah, but I totally fucked Gamzee over for it and we're like, so totally black for each other now, and we get high to stop ourselves from _(hic)_ killing each other, and he's the worst influence on me but _(cough)_ its all okay, anyway the point is, I'm so fucking _(hic, cough, cough)_ high right now I just felt you grab my horn which is so inappropriate, I'm sorry for assuming and if you're disgusted that I thought you did I would not blame you, and whatever you're saying, and I'm sure it's very insightful _(cough sputter cough)_ , it sounds like you're asking me to get out of the cocoon."

"TZ, I-I did grab your horn and I-I am thho thorry, and yessh, I-I did athhk you multiple timesh to pleathe get out ophh the cocoon. Pleathe."

You've cupped up some slime in your hands and you were about to take a sip, but you stop and look at him, smiling forcedly. "Yeah no I'm not that high," you say, letting your makeshift cup drip sopor all over the side of the recuprecoon, "What the motherfuck are you talking about?"

"Your twenty minutesh are up. Kanaya thaid itshh my turn in the cocoon."

"Sollux, I'm quite naked as you can probably see, and Kanaya's probably darned my old rags into a shawl or something, so if you really didn't mean to touch my horn I think we are both in agreement that I have to stay put until Kanaya comes back, and in the meantime if you could maybe go stand in a corner that would be optimal."

He sighs, wiping beads of sweat from his brow.

"TZ, I-I'm phucking blind."

Sollux doesn't wait for your reply, which is good because you don't have one, and he reaches a hand up to his face, through the murky high you smell a pair of goggles, not odd glasses on his face. The suction cups come off with a pfft and Sollux tips the blood that's collected in them onto the floor. "Burnt my eyeballthh outh getting ED to chill out and not thhell uthh out to the big bad wolphh." He pauses, then adds, "Phleathh, get out ophh-the recuphrechoon."

"Blind?"

"Yeshh."

You don't have an answer. You can recall the day you opened your eyes, looked at the sun and then never looked at anything else, the throbbing red burnt permanently into your eyeballs. And as you lay on the ground, liquid seeped from your lids but you weren't crying, you heard a chitter in the distance, not the distance outside of you, the tall trees surrounding you but a small bit of your thinkpan that you hadn't paid attention to before started to whir and work, clogs creaking for the first time. An alarmingly high-pitched voice sounded from this new lobe, squeaking things you didn't want to understand because you were woofbeast tired, but you had nothing else to do but listen, because besides the prickly grass beneath you there was nothing else to sense. _Hello! Hello! Hello! Terezi, do you hear me? Do you hear me? He-he-he!_

"TZ. Help me out here." Sollux has taken his goggles off and is holding them in his hand, the other hand scratching the skin around his empty sockets, and as he itches more blood rushes out, like when you press a cut to make it bleed more, remind yourself that you are alive. The blood that trickles down his cheeks is clotted and lumpy, staining his clothes as it falls. "TZ," he says, a bit exasperated now, finally finding the courage to engage socially with you and ask for advice, "I-I never thought it would itchh thho much."

"Sopor is good for that. I spent a perigee in my cocoon after I went blind."

He stares at you, a blank expression on his face, until you realise what you just said, and you quickly clamber out of the bed, pulling yourself out of the thick slime, full on nude in front of a guy who just seized you by the horn.

"I'm out." You say helpfully, because he can't see you standing very near him.

"Mushh obliged." Sollux peels off his loose clothing and drops it on the floor before he steps over the side of the cocoon, easy as pie, like he's going over a relatively short hurdle, this foot then the next and he sinks down low, enveloped by the soothing sensation of the slime as it slides all over his skin. He reaches a long arm over the side, grasping for something on the ground, feeling around when he can't find it and you find it first, an old metal soup ladle beside the cocoon on the opposite side to the side he's feeling for it. You hand it to him and he takes it, managing a grunt of approval as he ladles himself a hearty scoop of slime which he brings closer to his face... Past his lips and towards the leaking sockets that were his eyes, pouring the slime into the holes and you can hear it sizzle, he scratches his eyes madly all the while and you half expect his sockets to make a gargling sound and spit the slime out, completing this queer procedure.

You remember that you are a tangible being and find your arm lifting up towards your mouth and you lick your forearm, 1) because you lick stuff, that's your whole thing and 2), the back of your throat burns brighter than it did before and you know that isn't good but you don't care. Finger-lickin' good.

"So," You say decisively when you've cleaned up your arms and are headed for your legs, "Eridan?"

"He wasth going to thhell uth out. To that Big Bad Wolfhh thing. He killed FF, remember, hisch moirail? Heir to the Althernian throne? Jealoush, I think. He thought thhe wasth into me but we were jush trying not to die oph lonelineshh. Didn't work. I'm dying now, look." He tilts his head forward and empties the sopor out of his eye sockets and into the cocoon, turning to you but he's blind and misses his target by enough to be noticeable.

"Have you felt a new part of your thinkpan suddenly start functioning?" You ask, determined to keep the conversation going.

"I'm a computer fuckin'hh geniuthh. My thinkpan is all there."

"I'm sorry I tried to help."

He shrugs dismissively. "I-I should have known better. Ish my fault and I'll figure it out on my own." Sollux mutters absently, obviously tired of your presence. You decide to ask him one last thing.

"Do you... Have any idea where Kanaya put my clothes?"

His head swivels towards you, an unreadable expression on his face, partially because he's miscalculated your location entirely and is facing as away from you as possible so his face is obscured by his head. "KN's been stealing everyone's clothes. I think she puts the clean ones on a table in here somewhere. Pick out anything of mine, I don't care."

And with that, he sinks slowly into the slime, making a few bubbles float up and burst on the surface and you can only see the tips of his tallest horns protrude out and the distorted refraction of his body in the liquid. You turn decisively and go on a hunt for this cornucopia table he mentioned, and you find it next to an empty tub and a tap, a series of strings run here and out above you, pegs in places that resemble morse code, or you're overthinking things. You pick up a black shirt from the top of the pile and unfold it. The fabric is thick, and you realise before you see the grey symbol embroidered on it that this is Karkat's sweatshirt, and you suddenly don't know what to do. Drop it? Fold it up again, subsequently having to touch it more? You throw it in a pile of what looks like dirty clothes and wring your hands shamefully. The next thing you pick up is a T-shirt about two sizes too big for you. It's tailor-made to fit Sollux, meaning it's thin enough for you but the sleeves that are meant to go to your mid-upper arms reach your forearms, and the hem hangs loosely around your knees. The pants are lighter grey and also much too long. They're cargo pants with many pockets and fake suspenders and all these dangly bits and cuffs that are dramatically large. You slip them on and roll the cuffs up more and more, you roll them up to the knees and they still scrape the ground but beggars can't be choosers. You don't want to shuffle around holding your pants up all the time, so you reach for a red and blue striped belt, winding it once, twice around your waist before you can buckle it with the buckle hole you poked through the leather that was advertised as unpokable with determination and teeth. Shoes would be nice, since you'd bet your high-functioning nose that Kanaya had a hernia at the sight of your crocs, but Sollux's feet are easily twice the size of yours and although you've been quite creative thus far you can't find any loophole through those clodhoppers he calls shoes. You decide on tastefully mismatched socks which go up to your thighs, completing your newest ensemble. You do a practice walk, stumbling over yourself since you're high, and you trip and fall your way out of the door, Sollux gurgles and you accept this as a goodbye.

Where is Gamzee? You try to keep this thought in mind but since you're high your mind inevitably wanders. You decide, almost involuntarily, your body seems to be controlled by someone else, you decide to play the age-old game every wriggler plays, the floor is... The floor is what? The floor is... Larvae. The floor is larvae! You spent hours, maybe days, locked away in a tree that was too high for anyone who cared to climb, away from civilisation, socialisation, you never learnt how to start a conversation, your lusus was younger than you, look at all these teenage pregnancies! Yes, you bathe in the illusive glow of nostalgia, you turn in circles so you can get a tan all around, but stop, don't you remember? The floor is larvae! You drop to your knees, partially because you wanted to but mostly because you're dead tired, and you raise your hands in front of you and scoop up larvae like you're manning an ice cream stand, a waffle cone please and thank you, you pop a handful in your mouth and - Where is Gamzee? - chew, the grubs explode in your mouth, popping like balloons, delicious in a smoothie, you've heard, and you can feel more grubs squeal and squirm against your legs, criss-cross applesauce on the ground. You lie and make larvae-angels in the ground, this is the time, yes, this is the place to be alive.

You remind yourself of another game you used to play. The one where you're supposed, for no good reason, to answer everything with a question. Troll Jeopardy. This kind of execution is mainly used for those who walk too slowly in front of other higher bloods down narrow paths. Ding! Your hand is on your bell and you leap on your feet. Where is Gamzee?

This is an abandoned science lab where rustbloods and some bronzebloods were experimented on, resulting in the troll subjects becoming rabid and dangerous, shutting down the island's facilities and rioting until they all died of hunger. Ding, ding! You're sure you know. Where is Gamzee?

These chemicals enhance pain in the subjects it is injected into, and is used for teal and above only due to expensive manufacturing. DING! You bang your little diner bell so hard you can feel the little knob on top penetrate the skin, and its painful, but you've got to concentrate because you just read this the other day, you remember! Your mouth falls open and the words are about to roll off your tongue (Where is Gamzee?).

Click, clack, click. Your ears perk up. The clicking and the clacking penetrate through the hazy reality you've made for yourself and each click, each clack is like a hammer to the head. You revel in the fact that you are alive! You feel pain, and so you must be alive! You scamper up to a wall, determined not to be seen, heard, smelt, sensed in any way, no, this is crucial to your mission - that you remain completely undetected, yes, on your scouting mission for His Honourable Tyranny. You have uncovered rumors in the gold-olive district, talk of a hypothetical conspiracy, a coup to throw off the justice system - and it will not do (Where is Gamzee?)! No, this revolution is taking place at such a bad time, you'll have to swiftly and deftly provide punishment, since you were the scout to bring in the information it is likely that unless you can pawn your duties on to some new 5-6 sweep intern you will be selected to lead the execution team. Drat! Since your involvement seems inevitable you'll have to shift your schedule around a bit... Make time between... Hmm.... Law studies and (Where is Gamzee?) Cleaning up your rooms? Okay, law, genocide, cleaning? Sounds like a plan. You prescribe, hmm, public flogging of the main conspirators, or is that too mellow? A public torturing session, then a flogging, then castration? Now you're talking. And for the rest of the district, you think removal of the vocal chords will keep them from spreading any more nonsense, don't you agree?

Once you have your punishment plans nice and clean, it is time to skewer this intruder, the one you've been hiding from - wait, haven't you skewered enough people? Is your moirail not enough? What, is that your fucking thing now, you fucking asshole? Skewering people, innocent people? Fuck you! Fuck you!

You're about to scream out, "FUCK YOU!", but you peek around the corner and sniff quick, images flood your brain.

Kanaya (Where is Gamzee?).

You were going to skewer Kanaya.

You're going to have to pull out your own vocal chords later and choke yourself with them.

You tremble in your huge clothes, the extra folds and layers not adequate to keep out the cold inside of you, you feel like you've swallowed ten icebergs... Fuck you... You should apologise. Go! Go apologise to Kanaya for thinking about stabbing her through the back, go on! Your legs begin moving but you smell her lips part, an oily trail of lipstick lingers in the air behind her as she steps, she's talking. Muttering. Rambling. And then she's past you and your cold body, holding her tube of lipstick too tight in her hand like she's the one who's about to skewer somebody, and was she just talking, muttering, rambling something about clownhunting (Where is Gamzee)?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha but can we all appreciate the song reference from ophelia by the lumineers i snuck in there i put a lot of song references in there but one of the biggest reasons i put sollux in there was because he stutters on his i's please clap for me im slightly proud of myself and im never proud of myself i wont get used to it i promise


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh what its illustrated????? yes it is im working on it other chapters are too not all of them though i said im working on it yes they are all shitty they are supposed to be i spent no time on them

 

* * *

 

 

 

You sway to and fro to imaginary music as you stumble down an endlessly winding hallway.

There's a thing in your eye and you decide to pause and rub it out, but you forgot that your glasses are in pathetic bits in a dark room somewhere and you nearly poke your eye out of the socket. There is still a thing in your eye. 

You continue to sway left and right as you go, more due to your thinkpan spinning around in circles than due to personal preference and you wonder why you were walking in the first place. Everything that happened is a blur. You seem to be unable to register memories, you're living in the now. 

Sollux's huge clothes drag you to the floor slowly, and when your mind clears slightly you realise you're on the floor. You have no idea what's happened to you. You wish you were more goal-oriented. Or something.

It's an empty feeling, having nothing to do.

You've always got to have something to do, or why are you here? 

Why  _are_ you here?

Where is here?

Where  _are_ you?

You put your palms to the floor and slowly, like you're a bag of Troll potatoes, haul yourself up and onto your knees. As you stare, panting at the ground below you you see a drop of blood between your hands, teal blood, your blood. Whatever, you're almost about to laugh, blood means nothing to you now, and you round your back like you're doing yoga (again with the yoga references can you tell I'm Asian)  and you see a trail of the same drops of teal blood coming from the direction you came. Something to do! you're like Troll Hansel and Troll Gretel, only there's only one of you because you're a lonesome piece of fuck, and you lift yourself onto your feet, your arms had barely enough time to heal while you were in the recuprecoon, and turn slowly around as if you need a good greasing and follow the trail where ever it leads you. Everything you see on the way back, from bare walls to bare stone floors to more bare walls is a completely different experience this way around because you recall nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's freeing in a way, because if you have responsibilities you don't remember them and that's your excuse, but it also makes your empty stomach churn because you have no purpose and nothing to do. You've got to have something to do. That's why you keep swaying to and fro to imaginary music as you stumble down an endlessly winding hallway.

At first the blood is fresh, still reflecting in the dim lights above you and wet enough that you can just make out (with) your sorry face in each drop, but as you move along, your face begins to fade as the blood also fades and dries until all you look for as you keep going down this disgustingly long hallway is a small, round smudge tinted blueish green on the ground. You've followed this trail for enough time to call it a while when you figure to wonder where this teal blood is coming from. You raise a hand to your face as you walk and you feel your crusted nose, the scar forming beneath your eye and the place where you lost a bit of your ear, nothing is leaking there. 

You then reach and run both your palms down your arms, the air around you isn't freezing, but it's cold enough to be uncomfortable and you find a relatively small gash on your wrist, one which is old and crusting over but isn't quite there yet and blood trickles from it down your hand, your fingers, to the floor, one drop every ten steps, once every five steps when you swing your hand. You put your hands into Sollux's pockets, filled to the brim with lint but it insulates your uncomfortably cool hands. You still have a thing in your eye. As you absent-mindedly follow your bloody trail, you feel something deeply buried into the lint and you close your fingers around it and bring it to the surface. It's a hair pin and you laugh once at the fact that Sollux would use a hair pin, then you turn it around, it's black and slightly rusting over but you see the metal attached to it, the pin is slightly triangular, black, light in your hand and on the front are two strips of metal, the paint has chipped off and faded over time but it looks red, or is that the rust, the metal strips go along the sides of the pin in a V shape but curl up and out at the ends. Aries.

You wonder how long Sollux has had this, since robot Aradia didn't need pins and ghost Aradia's pins fell through her translucent self and onto the floor. You would do some calculations to figure out roughly the amount of years he must have carried this around, probably in these same fucking pants that are stiff as cardboard, but you don't care. You put the pin back underneath the layers of lint and keep going. What were you doing? Oh, yes, following the...

The blood has dried up. You can't make out anything in the dim light. 

Now, most other times something like this happened to you you would curl up into a sodden ball and cry, but you just shrug it off and throw open the closest door to you and step in. Character development.

The room is not a room, at least you don't think it is, you can't tell because it really is pitch black and there's nothing to smell. You rub your nose and eyes to try and sense something but there's nothing but a thing in your eye. You pull out a hand and it smacks against the wall you didn't know was next to you and it hurts, but pain is a temporary ailment and you keep walking with your throbbing hand trailing on the wall next to you. The room is probably not a room, as you try, a bit more tentatively, to stretch out your second arm out and you feel the wall there too. It's another godforsaken hallway. But what will you do? Go back? You keep going. You wonder why your legs aren't tired. 

Finally you hit the end of the corridor full on, then as new blood rolls down your face from your new broken nose, you feel the wall in front of you and there is something that feels like a doorknob so you grasp it and turn it the wrong direction, then the right one and the door creaks with the tonnes of rust in the works and you have to throw yourself onto the door several times until it gives way... 

To another dark room. Or hallway. God help you if it's another hallway. 

You step out of the doorway and your feet bend the floor beneath you and your stomach lurches but it's metal, thin metal that makes a clanging noise that resonates in the middle of your brain as you shift your weight. You reach out again and hit two sides of the same thin metal, the clanging is godawful and you feel in front of you, clanging echoes in your head and you feel one of those locks where you slide the bar across and it's unlocked, funny that there is a lock inside of this metal room (you're really very happy that this is a room). 

The metal is rusted, just like everything else here and you have to use both hands and all your body weight, the clanging is incessant and all of a sudden the bar gives and you  _clang_ to the side, the door creaks open after being closed for so many years and your nose has to adjust to the smell of light flooding in, not any brighter than the light you're used to but brighter than darkness. 

You lay still by the side of the metal, afraid to move because of the clanging but knowing it is inevitable, so you quickly jump out into the flooding light - the metal clangs up behind you and you yell a rude word at it and at yourself when you hit the ground headfirst, your neck snaps to the right and your cheek absorbs all of the impact and launches one of your final teeth across the room (more rooms!) and you skid across the textured floor a bit, reopening scabs on your face and this was really too much work just to stop the clanging. You've had worse wounds before and so you quickly hop to your feet, your tongue feels the gaping, bleeding hole where your molar used to be and you relish the familiar taste of blood as it starts to spill over your lip. 

"T'fuck?"

You remember that raspy, slurry voice, and you fucking hate it. You turn and smell your kismesis, prostrated on the ground belly-up and his mouth gapes open as he gasps for air. 

"Hey, Gamzee."

From the other side of the room you can see his teeth grit slightly and his figure tenses up. You walk over to him and stand, with as much condescension as you can muster with a mouth full of holes and blood all over the side of your face. Although this might make any other relatively healthy person (i.e. Kanaya) cringe and chuck you into a recuprecoon, you have to admit that you're much better off than the mess Gamzee's become. He's lying in a pool of sweat, sopor and blood, with cuts all over him and newer clothes since you saw him last, but they are caked with dried sopor, his pupils are contracted to little pinpoints floating in his bloodshot eyes, his makeup shows signs of recent reapplication but it is still smudged and he's a lot thinner now, you don't know how this could be possible, since you can't have been gone for more than a... a week? You don't know, time is futile here, that is true. 

He makes no move to rotate his eyes towards your towering figure, he stares up at the blinking light above you with an unreadable look on his face, blatantly ignoring you until you kick him in the face. 

"T'fuck you want, cunt."

"To piss you off."

"Got what you wanted. Leave me be."

"We both know you don't want that." 

His eyes pivot to you, and you're sure they dilated the slightest bit. Then they shoot away and he stares again at the light.

"Why'd you leave?" Gamzee asks, he still isn't looking at you.You open your mouth slightly to answer before you realise you have nothing to say. You feel something hard and heavy drop into your stomach as you fall to your knees beside him. You bend over his body and put a hand on his side, he makes a move to brush you off, he's too weak and you keep your hand there.

"Why'd y'leave?" He asks again, aggravation in his words but tiredness heavy on his tongue. He slurs a bit, too. "

Y'don't understan', Teresa." He pauses and takes deep breaths, "Y'been on my mind, girl, like a drug." Deep breaths. "Clowns- clowns'is hard ta' kill. Motherfuckin' hard. Ta' kill."

"You're going to live?" You hear yourself ask, air bottled up in your lungs and not budging.

"Y'know, I thought you's was dead. Doormouse dead." Deeper breaths.

"I was almost dead and you almost killed me, you asshole."

"Fuck off and let me be sentimental with you just'a sec." Gamzee grunts and moves a hand to cover his side, his blood flows and stains his shirt and the ground beneath him. "I's was lookin' for you, Teresa. All'over the fuckin' place. The motherfuckin' place. The fuck was you?"

"Kanaya found me and I was folded up Troll Ikea style with a horn up my ass. Her words, kind of."

"I do not rememem...ber that happenin'." He chuckles a bit but it evidently hurts so he coughs and more blood spurts into the air and falls onto his face. He's like a fountain. 

"Ooh, this is dying young, for me, Teresa I'm near motherfuckin'  _royalty_. I'm a fuckin' clown, clowns don't fuckin'... Fuckin' die young. Look at the shit I'm in. Look the fuck who I'm stuck with."

"You're not dying."

"It's my opinion."

"I don't give two shits about your opinion."

He waves you off. "That wus-her-face... Kanaya. Caught me at a bad fuckin' time, she did. Look, she got me. Damn near bisected me." He pulls up his shirt and you smell a huge cut on his abdomen, halfway to spliting him between his grubscars and it's bleeding like there's no tomorrow. "Her motherfuckin' lipstick did that."

You prod at the exposed flesh and he snarls and pulls down his shirt. You grin. He spits blood in your face, then he chokes and pulls his legs above himself.

You sit and pick a scab off of his arm, it's a way of comforting him but it's still black, his unhealed cut threatens to leak more blood and his pupils dart to glare at you.

"You never gave me that fuckin' shower." He grunts.

"What the fuck are you talking about."

"You said, when we's was in that motherfuck o'va room with all'a the sopor that youse was gonna gimme a fuckin' shower 'cause frankly I stunk." Deeper still.

"Yeah, well then I didn't hate you."

You sit in silence for a bit, your hand still resting on his bleeding stomach even though he gives you a look that means if he had the strength he'd fucking scratch your useless eyes out.

"Why'd you want to be my friend? All'a those sweeps ago, when you messaged me on Trollian?"

"Vriska dared me to." You know that's not a nice thing to tell someone but right now you're stuck in limbo between hating the guy and pitying the guy.

"Fuck you." Deepest breaths. "For motherfuck's sake, fuck you."

"I'm sorry."

"What has sorry ever fuckin' done? You say sorry t'Vriska's fuckin' dead ass when you killed her?"

"Don't you fucking dare!" Your rage suddenly skyrockets, what right has he to talk shit about Vriska? You punch him in the face and he rolls away, leaving a trail of blood, sopor and teeth and he gurgles and hisses. Laughs.

 

"Mother of fuck, get over her." He snickers and he puts a torn elbow to the ground. 

"You get the fuck over Tavros first." You sit still, reveling the warmth of fresh blood on your fist.

Gamzee mulls over this for a while, his mouth hanging open in anticipation of saying something but he's not sure what and he's drooling. "Get the fuck over her ass and help me the motherfuck up."

"I thought you were dying."

"Nah. I was kiddin'." He tries to get up himself but he slips and falls over his small puddle of slobber. He swears. "Killed the ass of'a Kanana... who ever the fuck. Scrawny ass jade thinks she can lipstick me to death now ain't that beyond motherfuckin' conceited." 

He uses a hand to pull the huge overgrown bangs out of his eyes and regards your shocked face then he laughs some more. 

"Oh, for fuck's sake.  _I'm kiddin'._ " He tries to get up again and sits, mirroring your pose, criss-cross applesauce and takes a huge sniff of his arm. 

"Troll Vick's VapoRub. Motherfuck am I addicted to the stank'a this shit."

He looks up to see you standing in front of him, too close for comfort and your reflection in his huge bloodshot eyeballs is one of your face, your mouth dragged down at the sides and your own red eyes almost mahogany with dullness. Your face is ashen, more ashen than usual and that thing in your eye, remember that thing in the corner of you eye that never stopped being a thing, yes that thing begins to move, crawling along the side of your waterline and then oozing huge, huge enough so it falls down, traversing your cheek as a tear, lingering for one second on your jaw line then dropping, falling uninterrupted to the floor and the white noise surrounding both of you is broken and silenced as it hits the ground and it may be your raging hormones but you're sure you could feel the earth quake once beneath that one tear drop, that one thing in your eye that seemed to have opened up the doors to millions more things on your eyes, they run down your face in old well-worn paths and you stare at this guy, this ugly shit motherfucker, this, the bane of your existence, your kismesis and you throw your arms, your newly healed arms around his neck and catch him by surprise so he topples over and you lie on top of him whimpering into his chest and he reaches up, his shield of apathy lowered slightly and he hugs you back. After stewing in a big puddle of your tears or a while you look up at his awful face, his torn ears and his ravaged nose, the lime-ish streaks around his mouth and you are once more overcome with great emotion, so great that you have to act upon it at once lest you implode then and there.    

"I fucking hate you." You growl, elbowing him where you know it hurts most.

He wheezes and groans and clutches his sides and recoils away from you, but he glares at you and says,

 

"Motherfuckin' hate you too."

 

And you know by the way he raises his foot and kicks you in the head that he means it, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> goodbye


End file.
